Dear Martha: New Year, New You

Dear Martha, 

Is it just me...is the idea of a New Year daunting? I love the idea of starting fresh but for some reason this New Year feels like a lot. I feel as if I need one more month to reach a level playing field before jumping into resolutions, fitness goals, and budget cuts, etc., etc., etc. Does anyone else feel this way? 

Thanksgiving, Christmas, after Christmas, and then I'm supposed to have a refreshed, healthy, sound self to start the new year? I don't have that feeling. 

A bit of New Year's Advice? Just please tell me I'm normal...

   – New Year, New Me, Maybe in February

Dear Maybe in February,

Keeping up with the Jones' is a life long struggle.  Granted it doesn't exactly apply to what you're saying yet in a way it does. It seems that life has become less about how it actually is but more about how it looks on the outside. Some people have mastered the art of looking good.  A perfectly cooked bird on Thanksgiving with a family who adores each other, a Christmas full of joy and laughter with presents for all and an aftermath of ice skating, movie watching, bowling, and shopping.  Some people have all that, most don't.

And, then, putting together your finances, setting a fitness schedule, starting the annual spring cleaning and then to be able to say, "This is going to be a great year! I am going be a new version of myself on January 1."  That's a keeping-up-with-the-Jones' statement.  

I love this quote by Anaïs Nin, "I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me."

 There is nothing bad about striving towards the goal of having it all together for the New Year. It's like anything in life, you must shoot high and if you fall just below, odds are, you've done quite well. 

We're all just as exhausted as you.  I agree, wouldn't it be nice to have a mandatory January Siesta, where you had to relax, reflect and regenerate before become the New You?  I think so. 

We all need a vacation and bad. 

The New Year is looming and we don't have the power to change the system in a matter of days.  You can though set your own goals and say screw all the other standards, expectations, and obligations to be the fantastic, refreshed, fabulous version of yourself on January 1. If it hits on February 1, you're still doing quite well.

Meanwhile New Years Eve has a load of obligations, "The Best Night of the Year," make it your own. Party or don't. Remember it's just another night.

This bit of insight by Hal Borland sums it up well, "Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us."

Honestly, I'm shooting for March 1. Join me and maybe we'll start a revolution.